Lawyers for the Poor

To the Editors:

A Lawyers’ Committee to Save Legal Services has been formed to protest the Nixon Administration’s disruption of federal legal services for poor people and its attempts to prevent lawyers for the poor from representing their clients to the best of their professional skills. The Committee has requested that lawyers, candidates for admission to the Bar and others interested protest against the Administration’s efforts to dismantle the legal services programs. The main goals of the Lawyers’ Committee include:

1) establishing a national independent legal services corporation free from political pressures;

2) assuring the continued right of lawyers for the poor to represent their clients by using their full range of legal skills and not be limited by outside regulations in the legal advice they can offer;

3) obtaining release of appropriated funds for existing legal services programs and retaining of all legal services programs pending appropriate legislation setting up a national legal services corporation;

4) reaffirming the principle that poor people should have the same access to the courts and to the legal system that other classes of the population have.

The Committee is in need of money and volunteers. Though the Lawyers’ Committee is mainly organizing members of the Bar, it hopes that other groups will organize as well. Those who want further information or want to distribute petitions or lobby can contact or send contributions to the Lawyers’ Committee to Save Legal Services, Room 500, 36 West 44 Street, New York, New York 10036.

Jim Fishman

Secretary,

Lawyers’ Committee to Save Legal Services